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I bought a pre-owned 740Li last week, the registered date was 30 Dec 2008, with about 41,000km on the clock.

I collected the car from the dealer and the car was driving fine, but the next morning when i attempted to start the car, the engine would not start. After a couple more attempts the engine managed to start up. I engaged drive and it showed both D on the gear lever and the instrument display, but the car would not move forward ( it felt like it was either in neutral or park), the car would reverse but would not be able to engage drive, after a few shut down and re start attempts, the car managed to engage D and move forward.

The fault occured again yesterday morning, where the exact same problem occured, the first start of the day. Managed to get the car moving after a few restart attempts. Today though it really started to get to me that my gearbox is faulty, when i was pulling up at a red light the car had a little jerk right before it came to a complete stop, once the light turned green, the car would not engage drive (Bear in mind i was in D this whole time). It felt like it engaged N or Park again, with a few shut down and restart attempts in the middle of the road it managed to move forward.

I checked the on board computer and it does not show a warning or a fault code with the gearbox, the issue is intermittent in nature and that is where it is bugging me. Has any one encountered a similar problem to mine? Could it be a gearbox failure issue or a electronic issue. I am planning on bringing it to the authorized BMW dealer tomorrow but they are fully booked till the end of the month. Please advise.

Hey thanks Juffe for the reply. Any idea if changing the entire selector would be a costly replacement? Because the warranty on my car has expired. And how did they diagnose the gear selector causing the fault?

If you just got the car last week, I'd talk to the salesperson or sales manager. I think it's in their best interests to keep you a happy customer. Correction - they want you to be a repeat customer. Having something happen within a week of purchase, while possible, does not seem right. Did you buy from the BMW franchised dealer, or an independent?

I got the car from an independent dealer, already contacted the dealer and they said they are not sure about the faults. In Singapore things are different, once you buy the car from the used car dealer they won't cover any issues or faults with the car.

I managed to drop the car off at BMW Singapore and insisted they have a look at the car, apparently they claimed no hardware fault, all it needed was to reprogram the software, the car will be in the shop till next tuesday for them to rectify the gearbox problem plus other faults such as my keyless lock is also not working.

Latest update regarding the gearbox. After updating the software, the same thing occured again, apparently it is the mechatronic valve that has to be replaced, BMW Singapore quoted me SGD$6000, for the replacement of the mechatronic. This is some big fat repair bill. Hopefully this will solve the issue.

Just curious..do the used BMW's still cost 5 to 7 times as much as the new ones in Singapore. Im amazed at the prices of these cars in alot of the Asian countries. I believe a new 740Li in Singapore cost around 450-500K dollars . Am I correct? I think I need to get a job in Singapore, bring my 2013 740Li with me and sell it!

Just curious..do the used BMW's still cost 5 to 7 times as much as the new ones in Singapore. Im amazed at the prices of these cars in alot of the Asian countries. I believe a new 740Li in Singapore cost around 450-500K dollars . Am I correct? I think I need to get a job in Singapore, bring my 2013 740Li with me and sell it!

Mate you are absolutely right, a new 740Li in Singapore cost $480,000. The tax they would impose on your car coming in would make you drop the idea. The tariffs on cars are insane over here.

Im really curious..how do people afford these cars in these countries? Are they a common site on the road? Are the wages that much higher there, that make a 500k car that affordable or is there just that many millionaires? Sorry if this is off topic but I have always wondered how Audi, Jag and BMW can sell so many cars that cost so much. Or is there some sort of loophole that people use?